


Roll Tight

by Neurtsy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Drinking, Inexperienced Louis, Insecure Louis, Panic Attacks, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:39:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurtsy/pseuds/Neurtsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Down the rabbit hole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roll Tight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vintagevinyl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagevinyl/gifts).



> Inspired by the chorus of Natalia Kills' Rabbit Hole
> 
> "'Cause I eat boys like a cannibal,  
> Fuck hard, howl at the moon like an animal,  
> Eat me, drink me, straight down the rabbit hole,  
> White lines, white lies, straight down the rabbit hole."
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/neurtsy

“You need to make us costumes,” Niall says in place of a _hello,_ and Louis jumps at his brass entrance. The door is cracked open, Niall standing in the frame. The sunlight coming in from the hall combats the artificial lighting in the art room, and Niall’s silhouette is lit up. The effect is suitably ominous.

“Costumes?” Louis manages. He’s sat at his worktable, mapping out a sketch for his Contemporary Design class. His body already feels hardwired for flight, hands caught in a frenzied splay across the table, heartbeat a stutter in his chest.

Liam is across the table from him, a photography textbook spread out in front of him. He frowns at Niall, looking unshaken but unimpressed. 

“There’s a costume party on Friday. We’re going as a group, so whip something up. I’ll find Zayn.” He vanishes out the door again. 

Louis’ picks up his fabric pencil, holds it in a death grip. He looks to Liam for explanation, or at the very least a reaction, something to stop the shake threatening to hammer out from under his skin at the sudden intrusion. 

Liam just shakes his head and turns back to his work. 

 

Louis finds his place again, but the lines he draws feel jagged.

 

“It’s at the banquet hall. Don’t know who managed to sign it out, or convince the faculty to let them use it, but it’s going to be a bash.” Niall is already talking as he walks back in with Zayn in tow, true to his habit of interrupting, picking up from exactly where he had left off, without any hint of greeting or consideration. 

No one has ever managed to confront him about it. Scared by his manic nature, like Louis, or caught up in disgusted awe by it as Louis suspects Liam is. 

Or irritatingly unruffled as Zayn is, standing nonchalantly beside Niall in the doorway.

 

Liam and Louis are staring openly. Niall crosses the room to join them, snaps his fingers at Louis.

“Hop to it! It’s four days, we need our costumes!”

Louis scurries off to get his tape measure and notebook.

 

“Louis, you don’t have to do that,” Liam is saying by the time he’s back, and getting to work. Or trying to, in a flurry of anxious but hollow movements, still perplexed and uncertain. 

“Yes he does. Start measuring people, or whatever you do.” Louis flinches at the command, pulling his pencil from the table in the same breath. 

“Louis, stop.” Liam sounds exasperated. “You don’t have to listen to him, and we don’t have to go to this thing.” Louis has already moved towards Zayn, who drops his jacket to a table agreeably, shrugging as Louis inches forwards to stretch his tape across his shoulders.  
 “We’re going. We have to. It’s not optional,” Niall says. He’s sitting on the worktable with his feet propped sloppily on a stool. He’s tracked mud in. It’s wet and streaked along the floor tiles, and Louis feels queasy, drops down to keep his head from spinning. 

“Why isn’t it optional?” He asks. He sounds and feels tiny from where he’s now crouched on the floor. He wraps his measuring tape around Zayn’s stick-thin legs to disguise the anxious swelling in his head.

“Because fashion students throw the best parties, don’t try to argue,” Zayn says smoothly. “Athletics get the kegs, arts get the drugs, but the fashion kids pull out all the stops with the design and decorations.” 

“And where do the lit majors fit in?” Louis asks, ignoring the offhanded praise. 

“We insist on book-based group costumes, of course,” Zayn replies, leaning down to pinch Louis’ cheek between his forefinger and thumb. It’s a teasing, comforting gesture, and Louis knows it was useless trying to hide his unease from him.

 

\--

 

Niall has already gone out and bought a disgusting, patchy looking fur suit. The legs are miles too long for him, and he drowns in the shoulders, so he’s tossed it into Louis’ work area and ordered him to make it right. 

When Louis tentatively asks what exactly Niall wants him to make out of it, Niall shrugs saying, “Zayn’ll think of something.” 

 

Niall then shoots down being the lion from _The Wizard of Oz,_ Aslan, and one of _Peter Pan’s_ Lost Boys before finally agreeing to be the March Hare. 

“A bunny! How cute will that be!” He laughs, before jumping down off the table and leaving, mentioning something about picking up some pills for the party. 

As always, Louis feels stunned by his departure, and more than a little shaken. 

 

Zayn settles on being the Mad Hatter, somehow convinces Louis to agree to be Alice. Liam gets the Dormouse. There’s an initial protest, a breath of laughter before he begrudgingly agrees. 

 

Louis’ head is already a whirlwind of ideas, and he’s scribbling illegible words down in his notebook alongside Zayn and Liam’s measurements. 

 

Niall returns a while later with a ziplock bag, shakes it at them with a gross smile, then saunters over and lets Louis measure his inseam.

 

\--

 

They’d only heard about the party three days earlier, and Louis’ already putting the finishing touches on their costumes. 

Liam’s nothing but impressed, Zayn’s been quietly admiring his work, and Niall’s only complained twice about him taking so long.

 

\--

 

Louis’ on his knees, the cheap rug beneath him digging into his skin grouchily, leaving him pink and pebbled. 

Mouth full, he looks up, wondering what Liam’s thinking about, looking down at him from this angle.  
Maybe he bats his eyelashes. Maybe he’s disgusted with himself. 

 

Liam shifts his hips slightly, and Louis grumbles around the pins between his lips, scowls best he can and swats at him to keep him still. 

Corduroy is an absolute bitch to pin up and sew by hand, and Liam’s restlessness isn’t helping. 

Liam smiles out an apology between his perfect teeth and Louis wants to stab his sewing needle into the back of Liam’s thigh. 

 

“Right. These are done,” Louis says a while later, and stands up, smoothing out the fabric of Liam’s dark brown trousers as he does. He gives them a critical once over, and sighs. “They’ll do, I guess.” 

 

“You’re such a perfectionist, Lou,” Liam groans, smiling as he reaches out to squeeze Louis’ arm. “I think they look amazing.” He pauses to twist around in front of the mirror on the back of the door. “Can’t believe this was just scrapped material an hour ago.” 

Louis huffs off the compliment. The stitching is uneven, waistline folded over itself twice, and the cursed sewing machine massacred the cuffs. They’re awful. Louis’ awful. Liam still fills them out perfectly. 

 

Louis opens his mouth to point all of this out, but what comes out is, “let’s get the jacket fitted for you.” 

Liam stretches his arms out to sides instantly. 

 

Louis fits the ugly, lumpy dark grey suit jacket around the width of his shoulders, and begins pinning it up. Liam’s still, unflinching as Louis gets to work. A perfect model, perfect mannequin. 

 

By the time he’s finished, the dark grey material is mottled with brown velvet elbow patches and bold, zigzagging stitches. Liam won’t stop singing his praises, and Louis wants to shrivel up and burn the stupid thing.

 

“It still needs a few more touches, though.” Louis’ sifting through their scrap pile, dissatisfied. “Want to take a trip to the thrift store?” Liam grimaces, working the jacket off his shoulders and folding it neatly onto the worktable. 

“I know what _‘a trip to the thrift store,_ ’ means, Lou,” he says, voice as stern as he can make it when talking to Louis, which isn’t very stern at all.

“Fifteen minutes, I swear,” Louis says, blinking up at him pleadingly. “Otherwise your costume is just a bad coat and horrible pair of brown trousers.” He pauses. “With _ears,_ Li.” Liam laughs, and Louis knows he’s just gotten his way. 

“It’s a _wonderful_ coat and a _wonderful_ pair of brown trousers,” Liam corrects, and Louis rolls his eyes. “And you have to swear you won’t get distracted and keep me there all day, buying a garbage bag of fabric.” 

Louis mimes crossing his heart.

“Let’s just pop over and see if we can find some things,” he says, packing up his needle and thread, and slinging his bag over his shoulder. 

“Sure.” Then Liam hesitates, gives him a look. “But fifteen minutes _tops,_ Lou.” 

 

Liam keeps a firm grip on his wrist while they’re in the store, says his name in a low and warning tone each time Louis’ fingers get distracted, flitting through the hangers for too long. 

 

He finds a huge misshapen pink sweater, and a purple velvet vest and demands that Liam carry them both. He does so without complaint, but does ask how they could possibly fit in with his costume. Louis shushes him and keeps searching.

 

He’s digging through a bin of winter accessories when Liam announces that his time is up, and begins dragging him away towards the register. It takes begging, whining, and finally a touch of foot stomping to let him stay another five minutes. 

 

In those five minutes he manages to find a pair of faded bowling shoes in Liam’s size and gasps delightedly, practically bouncing as he buys them, squirreling them back to the art room to spray paint them a pale pink. 

 

He shreds the pink sweater while the paint dries, neatly cuts up the purple velvet, and stitches the grey felt ears to an elastic headband.

 

Once the shoes are dry, he makes Liam try on the whole ensemble. 

 

The tail looks cheap - a thin, braided piece of pink fabric sewn crudely to the back of his fitted trousers, but Louis thinks the pastel pink fingerless gloves are a nice touch, if Liam would just stop picking at them. 

The ears look the best, round and oversized, the wiring Louis sewed in keeping them upright and in shape at the sides of Liam’s head. 

The purple felt has been turned into an off kilter bow tie. 

 

Liam loves it, and tells Louis to stop fussing. 

It’s a useless comment, but Louis appreciates it anyway. 

 

\--

 

“Lot of people going tonight,” Liam says, managing to keep his tone nonchalant, but his eyes give him away, sideways and examining. Louis nods along, doesn’t say anything.

They’re tucked away in Louis’ cramped one-person dorm room. Pale blue curtains are parted slightly to let the light in, because blue is calming, and sunlight makes you happy. 

 

Neither are keeping Louis from chewing on his thumbnail, knees tucked under his body, watching Liam apprehensively.

 

“Lots of opportunity with a lot of people going,” Liam tries again, dropping the subtlety. Louis imagines it seeping into the braided cord rug beneath his feet. It’s also blue. 

 

Louis wonders if he can suffocate in his own silence.

 

“Come on, Lou, not even a bit interested?” Liam wheedles. Louis sighs.

“It’s not really my own interest that matters, Li,” he says around his thumbnail. 

“What does that mean?” Liam asks. Louis can hear the frown in his voice even before he lifts his head to look over.

“There’s not exactly a line of takers.” He watches Liam pout in response. 

“That’s not fair. You have to mingle a bit. There’s plenty of people who would adore you if they had a chance to get to know you.” Louis reverts back to silence. Liam isn’t deterred. 

“There’s a guy from the photo lab I think you’d like,” he continues. Louis admires how nonplussed he’s being. “He’s a bit goofy, but he’s nice. Smart, too.”   
“Nice and smart. Exactly my type,” Louis says dryly. It’s meant to be mocking, but the truth stings him a bit. 

“It’s just an idea, Lou,” Liam says gently. “I hate seeing you isolate yourself, that’s all.”

“I know. And thanks.” It still hurts. 

“So you’ll consider it?” Liam’s hopeful smile is hard to deny. 

“I guess..” 

“Great! I was talking to the new batch of photography students about the party. He said he was planning to go before I brought you up - ”

“You brought me up?” Louis says, panicky and cutting off Liam’s stream of enthusiasm. 

“Well I didn’t say much...just that I had a friend - ”

“Don’t talk about me to strangers, Li, you know I hate that - ” This time he cuts himself off. “Did you say one of the new students?”

“Yes?” Liam says tentatively. 

“A first year?” There’s too much doubt and hesitation in Louis’ voice to bother trying to hide. 

“He’s _nice,”_ Liam says firmly, bumping his knuckles against Louis’ arm. Louis’ bed is too small for both of them, sitting bunched together. 

 

Liam leaves a while later, and it feels miles too big on either side. 

 

\--

 

Louis dresses in the art room closet. When he steps out, Zayn whistles, Liam claps, and Niall asks why he isn’t wearing makeup. He sounds disgusting and disappointed.

“Alice was seven, why would she have makeup on?” Louis grumbles. He’s drowned out by Zayn and Liam showering him with compliments - of both his handiwork and his body. Both kinds sound hollow, but he gives them a shy spin anyway.

 

His dress is swirls of criss-crossed blue and white, a multitude of slips sewn together underneath that spiral out when he spins, and puff up around his legs when he’s sitting. 

The top scoops down to show off his collarbones, low enough that it’s threatening to expose his nipples, and he finds himself pulling up the hem self-consciously to keep from flashing off the cleavage he doesn’t have. 

 

He’s all done up in lace trim and tight bows, and Niall comes at him, lewdly asking if he’s matching underneath, and Louis flushes, jumps to keep his prying hands off, wonders if they can tell he had considered it.

 

He’s only wearing it to appease Zayn and Liam, letting them drag him out so they don’t spoil their night worrying about him staying home alone again.  
And the dressmaking - he loves new designs, pulling skirts and swirls together out of nothing. Given the choice, he’d have modeled it on someone else, but he settles the panicked stirring of his stomach with a silent repetition of _I’ll only stay until twelve...only stay until twelve.._

 

Louis circles them restlessly, tweaking bits of their costumes, snipping off loose threads. He takes the longest on Liam.

He isn’t entirely convinced the whiskers are going to stay on, or the dark purple circle on his nose is going to resist smudging, but he finally decides that it’s good enough. 

 

Eventually Niall calls him out for stalling, and drags them across campus. 

 

Louis’ too on edge when they get there to properly admire the decor, despite Zayn and Liam on either side of him, pointing it all out. There are tables lined across the back walls covered with food and plastic cups, and smaller, circular ones along the sides adorned with tall vases of flowers.

Music is already booming, a deep crawl that shivers in ribcages from a distance, swelling in ears as they step further inside.

Louis clams to Liam’s side at first, before his hands ever-so gently pry him off, ease him towards Zayn with a murmured reassurance that he’ll be back in an instant, off to find someone.

Louis doesn’t want to think about _someone._

 Zayn’s arm curls around his back, holds him comforted until a girl glides up, all black contacts and pastel hair, and convinces him to slip outside for a cigarette with her. 

Louis’ then passed on to Niall, who spares him a glance before just leaving, without a hint of an excuse. 

Niall’s lack of sugar coating makes it almost forgivable, until it sinks in that he’s been left alone. 

 

Without the dormouse, the hatter, the march hare, Louis looks ridiculous. It stops being a costume, and he feels uncannily like a child, lost and bewildered, and very much fallen down a rabbit hole. 

His outfit feels like a joke, and the evil doubts begin to ooze through the cracks in his mind, making him wonder if they goaded him into this on purpose, ditched him on purpose, all just out of sight and laughing. 

 

The music is too loud, voices too laced with hostility, air too hot and skin too tight. 

 

Spikes and surges of anxiety hit him from all angles, and he can feel his throat sealing off as he tries to twist and cower through the crowd. His concept of time disintegrates as his fingernails try to retreat back into his skin.

 

He finds the wall, shrinks his back against it, prays the tables of food are enough to distract the crowd from him. 

 

It’s not a heart attack, and his head knows this well enough, but his body won’t stop insisting, pulse racing, sweat bubbling and beading beneath his skin. His sinuses begin to beat in a dulled ache, tears springing into his eyes, breathing refusing to regulate.

 

A clatter to his side makes him leap, wrenching bones and ligaments out of place to find a patch-furred rabbit loading up a paper plate with bite-sized cupcakes, frosting neon and offensively coloured. 

“Alright, spaz?” It asks, sprinkles decorating flat lips as he nods his head in Louis’ direction.

“Why are we even friends, Niall?” Louis asks helplessly. Niall looks at him around a mouthful of cupcake, doesn’t bother to stop chewing. 

“We’re not, really,” he says with a crumby shrug. “But you’re around when I’m around, so we might as well hang out.” He pops another cupcake into his still-full mouth, and either doesn’t see or doesn’t care to comment on the tears in Louis’ eyes. 

It’s absurd how comforting Louis finds it. 

 

Niall finishes his cupcakes first, then hauls up the bare minimum of his social skills, and drops a heavy arm around Louis’ shoulders, pulling him in towards his body. 

A wounded animal leaps and lurches in his chest as Niall’s other hand comes sliming in to latch around his waist.  
The same creature gasps out a death rattle as Louis scans the room for an escape. There isn’t one, and he presses his cheek against the faux fur. It’s almost as soft as it is ugly. 

 

It isn’t long before Niall’s hands start peeling and prodding at him, roughing up the material of his costume. It’s all above the waist, so Louis allows it, and tries to turn his breathing into something patterned. 

 

“Having fun yet?” Niall asks, and Louis honestly can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic. Louis hiccups a wet response into Niall’s shoulder, who laughs. It’s almost a sympathetic sound.

“That’s just because you’re sober.” Movement disrupts Louis’ head from where it’s resting as Niall’s hands move like clammy eels against the slippery plastic of the bag tucked into his costume pocket. Fingers reach in, come out holding something bright and round, and there’s a beer-soaked whisper in Louis’ ear telling him, _‘here, take it, it’s free,’_ that makes him grimace. He knows Niall, knows ‘free’ doesn’t _really_ mean free, and he dreads what he’ll be expected to do for it later. 

This thought brings on another frantic sweep of the party, and his eyes land on Liam, watching them for god knows how long, blocked by a string of costumed guests. 

There’s a spark of something in Liam’s eyes as he watches them, but it isn’t jealousy, just disapproval. Louis can hear his voice inside his head, saying _you can do so much better,_ but he’s just not convinced, while Niall’s impersonal and roaming hands are convincing him of something else.

Louis tries to twist away from the pressure, his own fingers tightening over the pill pressed into his palm. It’s too late to hide it, and he dejectedly wonders if he can just absorb it through his skin, make it disappear.

 

He can see the same hurt that’s been festering in his heart, present there in Liam’s eyes. The same eyes sick of watching his friend dance to the same song on blistered feet. Sick of watching him get screwed around and left sad.

 

Louis unfairly thinks that if Liam really cared, he’d take him himself. Fuck him, love him, look after him. Revoke his heterosexuality. He feels guilty at the thought, but doesn’t try to take it back or deny it.

 

He brings his cupped hand to his mouth, brings it away empty.

 

He hates Liam and his lion heart. Puts him in a mouse costume only to feel him roar louder inside his chest. It’s cruel, torturous, how sweet his eyes are. 

 

It’s not the inspiration to swallow down the shuddering bitterness squirming over his tongue, but it sure is an encouragement. 

 

It melts away like candy floss. 

 

Niall skulks off just as Liam manages to wade through the crowd towards them. It doesn’t quite feel like a retreat, or a rescue to Louis, but he takes it. 

 

“Sorry for leaving,” Liam says once he’s positioned back at Louis’ side. Louis shrugs. He doesn’t mention Zayn leaving, and then Niall leaving too. It’ll just cause a fuss. He can’t tell if Liam’s been gone five minutes or thirty, and all he wants is to forget it all.

“It’s okay.” He doesn’t mention the panic attack either.

“Sorry for leaving you with _him,”_ Liam clarifies, scowling after Niall’s disappearing fur suit.

“He’s not so bad,” Louis tries, a little surprised, a little sickened with how much he believes it. 

“He’s still pretty bad,” Liam sighs, pulling Louis into him. “What did he give you?” 

“I don’t know,” Louis says quietly. He doesn’t, and the reality of it sinks in slowly, pulse quickening when it does. He looks up to see Liam’s lips pulling together in a tight line, unvoiced disapproval that Louis can feel rising from his skin like steam.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says, even quieter. Liam brushes it off.

“It’s your business,” he says smoothly. He’s still frowning after Niall. “God he makes me mad sometimes...” 

“We’re all mad here, Li.” This earns him a kiss to the forehead. 

 

They stand like that for a while, Liam’s body intrinsically swaying to the music. It’s long enough for Louis’ heart to ease back into a normal rhythm, and breathing to stop being quite so shallow and manic. 

It’s almost long enough to forget that Liam has _someone,_ went off to find _someone,_ but she appears through the crowd like a sorceress before he can get carried away in the fantasy. 

 

“Hey, Soph,” he greets, already sounding tired. They haven’t been here a full hour yet. 

“Hi,” she responds with a soft smile, giving Louis’ wrist a pale squeeze before Liam tucks her under his other arm. Louis wriggles his way out. 

“You’re supposed to be introducing me to some guy,” he says, looking out into the hoards of people so he doesn’t have to see the soft kiss Liam places on the corner of her mouth. 

“Yeah?” He hates how pleased and surprised Liam sounds. “Great, okay, let me just text him!” 

 

It all happens too fast, and Louis wants to curl up and fade away. There’s a promise waiting in a bad taste against his tongue. It’s the only thing that stops him from running off.

Liam messes with his phone, and Louis takes the time to look Sophia over. She’s in a dress too, and fills hers out much better than Louis does his. It’s a pale, filmy pink that wraps down over her legs, her makeup glittering and fantastical, fragile fabric wings spread out across her back. 

Louis hates how classy she looks, how magical. She’s beautiful, a light glow spread across her cheekbones, and he hates that too. Mostly he hates her kindness, and the sad, sweet, knowing look he finds in the corner of her eyes sometimes. 

 

“He’s not here yet,” Liam says, jarring Louis out of his shallow thoughts.

“Well when’s he coming?” Louis asks, doing his best to stitch in impatience, and whininess to his voice.

“Within the hour,” Liam answers after a moment. “So you’ll really give him a shot?” 

“What’s he expecting me to give him?” Louis counters before he can sensor himself, and add in some aloofness, attempt to blotch out the mild terror that comes out instead. 

“I don’t think he’s _expecting_ anything...I think I made it clear that this wasn’t so you could just...” Liam trails off laughing, and Sophia shares a smile with them.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you to...I don’t know, jump him tonight.” Liam picks up again, making a ridiculous _as if_ sound. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”

 _I could.._ Louis thinks, but the words drown, dying in the fond look Liam’s giving him. 

“I know that’s not your style,” he’s saying. “Besides, I wouldn’t try to set you up with someone who only wanted you for that.” Louis watches him warily.

“So if I want to just...fuck and walk away, he’s not going to be into it?” Louis says, cramming disappointment into the cracks between his words. Liam laughs, brightly amused. 

“Picking up one night stands as a new hobby, Lou?” He says, and it’s a joke, amused and scoffing at the notion. 

“Yeah. Trying new things,” he returns, trying to set his jaw. The words sound hollow inside his head, and makes him angry. He wants it to be true, wants to make it true, if only to get back at the bad time festering beneath his skin, spoiling things.

“Won’t that be the day,” Liam says, and it’s teasing, affectionate, makes Louis glower. 

“What’s his name?” 

“Harry. He’s eighteen, or nineteen I think? You’d like his portfolio. He does a lot of floral work, and some really artistic stuff.” Liam’s hand has made its way down Sophia’s back as he talks animatedly. She leans into the touch comfortably, and Louis has to look away again, cast the sight from his head, cast away the perfect image they project, like plastic figurines atop wedding cakes. 

 

“Are there drinks here?” He asks, not bothering to respond as Liam’s description of photographs gets more detailed. Louis looks back in time to see a slight twitch threatening to spoil the smile on his face.

“There’s bound to be something..” Liam sends a suspicious glance to the stretch of tables beside them. Plastic punch bowls shimmer, pink and gold-flecked. “But I wouldn’t trust it. And should you really be mixing alcohol with...?” He doesn’t finish his sentence, lets it hang, pointedly addressing how he feels about Louis’ rare but careless actions.

Louis lets Liam’s disappointment in him sink in and blister him internally. He hates it too. 

 

Sophia’s voice comes in a low murmur, and through the beat of music Louis picks out that it’s a question, an invitation to dance. Instead of answering, Liam drops a glance towards Louis, and he can’t take it.

“Go dance,” Louis says firmly before Liam has a chance to open his mouth. “I’m fine.” Liam looks unconvinced, and Louis knows he’d stay there at the back with him, until Louis’ skin began itching and pleading to leave. He knows Sophia would too, content to soak up company in return for gentle smiles and sweet conversation. He knows this, and he can barely stand it.

“Really, I’m going to go find Zayn, okay?” This distribution of responsibility seems to settle Liam’s mind, and he nods, accepting, if not a little stiff.

 

Louis turns, then reels back on his heels to avoid colliding with the couple crowding the section of table behind them. He apologizes, despite the near miss, and moves to slip through the crowd.

 

It’s easy to stick to the walls and find an exit. Finding Zayn is as easy as tracing the outlines of the building. 

Louis trails his fingertips along, letting the coarse exterior numb them. 

 

Zayn’s sitting on stone steps near the side entrance, arm tucked around the same black-eyed girl, their heads low and companionable. Louis spots them and hesitates. He doesn’t like being an interruption, rarely feels like anything else. 

 

Zayn finally lifts his head to see him standing there, awkward and small.

Louis’ beckoned over, and his feet tug him along. 

 

“Hey you,” Zayn breathes in smokey greeting as they shuffle to make room for him, and Louis sits. “How’s your night going?”

“Fine.” It’s a crooked-toothed lie, and Zayn merely absorbs it, lets it be. “Niall gave me something, so...” The _so_ sits heavily between them, loaded. _So_ could go either way. _So_ could turn _fine_ into something good. _So_ could send him reeling back home. 

 

Louis blinks at the onslaught of _so-ness_ inside his head. 

 

“I think...” he stops short. He doesn’t know what he thinks. There’s suddenly a paranoid edge to his thoughts, his body jerking into red-alert, trying to analyze every feeling and movement, to decide if so has already been put in motion, or if he’s just hopelessly untuned to his own skin. 

 

“You think too much,” Zayn says, simply and comfortingly. Not an excuse or an accusation, and Louis sags against his skinny frame.    
“Yeah, well...you smoke too much,” he mumbles into the shoulder of Zayn’s jacket. It’s cool and greasy against his face. It feels like monster skin, fleshy but lifeless, and a breathy laugh eases its way up and out of Louis’ chest. _It_ is _skin,_ he thinks disjointedly. 

A quiet shudder trickles wetly up his spine. 

 

“Coming up,” he says, voice a whisper, a secret that suddenly belongs to the night air. 

“Oh yeah?” Zayn says conversationally, and Louis loves him for it. There’s no feeling of judgement, and that realization spikes another trickle up his spine, like high-scattered notes across the neck of a guitar. 

 

“I’m supposed to be meeting someone,” Louis says, a frown feeling too heavy, warping his face, so he drops it. 

“That’ll be fun, won’t it?” Zayn asks. Louis smiles into his shoulder, all at once endlessly entertained by the low, calming way he talks. It reminds him of baby-talk, or the coaxing out of small animals. 

“Liam doesn’t believe I’ll sleep with him,” Louis replies. It’s not really an answer to the question, but it’s barely straying. It pulls a laugh out of Zayn, and Louis imagines ash falling from his lips. 

“That would be a bit spontaneous of you,” Zayn says, laughs again. There comes a dim anger at the laugh, but it’s a far-away and pretty sort of anger.

“I could be spontaneous,” Louis says. It’s a pink grumble against leather, and he can feel his cheek growing damp from his breath. 

“Of course you could be, love,” Zayn says. 

The girl has been silent as stones beside him, and something familiar and uninvited pipes up in Louis’ bloodstream, wondering and wandering in his skull, going, _is Zayn being condescending? is she laughing at me?_

These two tracks become hits, and play on loops through his head until he rises, dizzy and doubtful. 

He stands, unsteady, brings a hand up to rub at his eyes, and jumps when it tangles in long blonde hair. It registers as a wig a heart-skip too late.

He rocks on his feet, brain frantically scrambling as it tries to remember what he was supposed to be doing. 

 

“Going back inside?” Zayn prompts, and Louis catches it with fumbling hands. 

“Going back inside,” he confirms. His skin, his bones, his brain feel like gelatin. But his legs are intact, and he mumbles out a goodbye that tastes of apologies, traces the outlines of the building until the kick-drum heartbeat of music is pulling him in. 

 

The stringiness of his cheap wig itches at the back of his neck, and tickles at his forehead, and he finally wrenches it off in annoyance, drops it to a table to relieve his irritated scalp. 

His fingers feel like heaven until he imagines them burrowing into the skin and tearing down to the bone. 

 

He knocks into someone in passing, and shudders out a gasped apology. He’s forgiven with a drunk grin, and he can still feel that simple stretch of smile as he turns and walks into the crowd again. It sits at the back of his mouth, where it mingles with the flavour there that’s urging him to gag and retch. He pushes on with the hard to hold on to plan to find Liam and Sophia again, or Niall, as a last resort.

 

The music warps out into breathing static. 

 

Everything seems to have expanded. Like books left in the rain, swollen and thick with wetness. 

Louis is having trouble pinpointing edges. Colours seem to be blending together, pinks into greens seamlessly, yellows into blues.

Straight lines have fucked off along with his friends, and he finds himself still standing alone, and unsteady, eyes refusing to focus on the ripples of masks and faces - they’re becoming impossible to tell apart, anyway.

 

His fingers suddenly feel desperate for company, and want to flick out and capture clothes as they swish and flow by like ribbons, rivers.

 

The music sounds like rattlesnakes. 

 

Anxiety, though muted and trapped in quicksand, tries its best to run to him. He’s impressed he’s managed to elude it this long, and slinks deeper into the crowd, thinking if he can just merge into the mass, he can vanish, and it won’t be able to find him. 

 

His eyes seem to be picking up bits and flashes of everything around him. The reflecting glass vases along the edges of the hall, and the glittering way they hold carefully, then spit back the bright colours and lights being tossed through the air. 

 

He gets snagged by the neon distractions of mouths and hands and freckles, polish, laughter.

 

Somehow he tracks his way to the back again, and presses himself to the wall, feeling his eyes expand as they mutate and grow to accommodate every sight and colour and motion of the crowd.

 

This is how Liam finds him, Sophia and a stranger there beside him, with Louis hot and unblinking, tremors playing snakes and ladders through his veins. 

 

It takes a moment, or a lifetime, for Liam’s initial words to reach him, but when they do he snaps back to reality like an elastic band, cracking and rubbery. 

 

“Sorry, hi, what did you say?” Louis asks, and his words feel engorged and bubbly. His heart has picked up a strange stride in his chest, a lazy gallop twigging up a floating feeling in his guts. 

“How are you?” And of course Liam looks concerned, but also like he’s combating something else, some kind of laughter. It takes Louis a moment to conclude that he must be drunk, tipsy at the very least, and it makes him wonder how long he’s been gone.

 

“M’good, Li. Hi,” he strings out an extension of greeting to Sophia, who’s a smile of commercial toothpaste in return. The unfamiliar face catches his attention when he manages to pull away from the gleam. 

“Hi,” he repeats, watching the stretch of pink lips form a slow _‘hello.’_ Louis’ entranced by it, his eyes a thousand pounds and counting, and he has to wrench them up to meet a pair of green and hazy eyes. 

 

“This is Louis,” Liam says, and Louis blinks, confused, before he turns to see Liam talking to the stranger. “Louis - ” his attention snaps again - “this is Harry, from my photography class.” 

 

That’s his cue, his line, his big moment, and Louis wipes his hands over the layered fabric of his costume, extends one to Harry.

He tries to pair it with a _‘nice to meet you,’_ but instead his mouth warps it into _‘what are you?’_ It sounds impolite and accusatory, and Louis’ face drips tightly as he tries to reword, replace. 

“I’m a magician,” Harry replies, not missing a beat and Louis lets a cool wave of relief hit with with spray. “Needed something really last minute,” and he’s smiling out an apology, looking down and himself with a shrug. 

It’s a simple get up, just a black blazer over a white button down, a red makeshift cummerbund. A black top hat that Louis suspects is made out of felt and cardboard sits moodily on his head, and he wants to reach out and topple it. 

Most eye-catching is the red rose tucked through the top buttonhole of the blazer. 

 

“Where’s your wand?” Louis asks, and smiles in stupor when Harry produces one with a wavering flourish from up his sleeve. 

There’s a lapse - it feels like keys held unturned in the ignition of Louis’ head. Liam talks smoothly, encouraging Harry to talk, and Sophia is bright and engaging. Louis watches a conversation unfold like a car crash, piping up when he can, looping together words like needlework and struggling to make them fit. 

 

Harry’s drunk, some pre-party in the dorms, and he talks slowly to make up for it, treading carefully so his tongue doesn’t skip ahead or interrupt. Louis watches in fascination, listens as he perks up at the mention of some class assignment, talks about photography. 

It’s not Louis’ subject, but he’s listened to countless tips and ideas and lectures from Liam. Through the glaze warping his vision and contaminating his palms, he finds it’s also the same, listening to Harry. Easier to comprehend, even, with a leisurely pace and low inflection. 

 

Harry’s eyes catch his, and he slows to a stop, smiling a gentle question to Louis, who’s staring. 

He clues in that he’s staring, and he blushes. It barely shows, his face already tinted pink from the heat of the hall, and the rush of fire through his bones.

“Are you drunk, too?” Harry asks, and Louis watches as the smile spreads across his face, open and accepting, and he sways on his feet. 

A hand comes to latch around his upper arm, steadying him on the floor, and he looks over to see Liam, finding the protective sheen there in his eyes. 

“Not drunk,” Louis answers, staggering a bit to come forwards, and stand beside Liam, turning to his side to talk to Harry. 

It feels less like an interrogation to be standing between them, rather than in front of. Sophia’s out of sight, eclipsed by the width of Liam’s chest, and deliriously Louis finds he’s sad to have her gone, missing the sparkle and fall of her dress. 

 

But up close he’s able to see the angles of Harry’s jaw, the bow of his lips and how vibrantly coloured they are. 

He’s staring again, stuck in some weird trance, and shakes himself out of it, peeking up to see Harry looking down at him, gaze flicking over him, surely uncomfortable with the assault from Louis’ eyes. 

 

“I like your dress,” Harry says, in place of whatever negativity Louis was expecting, and he blinks, possibly for the first time in days. 

“You do?” He asks, startled, by the compliment and the reminder that he’s wearing one in the first place. He looks down to see an ocean of blues and whites, his body swaying, one leg shaking to the drums. The restless motion churns up waves and foam amid the material, and Louis imagines fish swimming by his ankles. His skin feels distantly wet. 

“I do. S’pretty.” Harry’s fingers pinch a section of the fabric at Louis’ shoulder, and rub together delicately. Louis’ head reels.

 

“He made it himself,” Liam brings up, and Harry’s fingers fall back down to his side. 

“You did?” Harry asks, and Louis blinks again, watches the room cut to black for a split second. Words fail him, but he manages a nod. It’s an effort to make it stop, and keep from moving, birdlike to the beat. 

“That’s really incredible,” Harry says solemnly. “I made this,” he tugs the crooked top hat from his head, “and it’s shit.” Louis doesn’t disagree, and finds a giggle worming its way out of the cocoon of his throat as he stares at the crumpling object held in Harry’s hands. 

He stifles himself, looks up to find a dark swarm of curls now framing Harry’s face, a black scarf folded and wrapped around his head. 

 

There’s wonder present in Harry’s voice after he drops his hat to the floor, his hands tracing the seam of Louis’ dress as he asks him how he made it.

Louis finds some letters rattling around in his mouth, and he tongues them into word-like shapes. They form shaky sentences, trying to explain, but he finds himself caught on some weird track, talking circles around some stitching technique. 

Harry doesn’t look bored, and Louis can’t quite understand it. He barely jumps when Liam taps him on the back, startling his attention away from the way his mouth is running.

“Do you think you’d be alright here if me and Soph left for a bit?” He’s asking, and Louis squeaks out a reply. 

“I guess?” It’s a question because he’s not really sure of anything, and Liam hesitates.

“You know where to find Zayn, right?” He says carefully, and Louis nods fast enough to blur his vision. He stops, feeling spacey and blind.

“We’re just going to dance,” Sophia says, and Louis’ eyes refocus on her face. “We’ll stop by again in a little while, won’t we?” Her arm is poised on Liam’s arm, and he nods, affirming. 

 

They bunch together, and begin to vanish behind them, animated and cheeks flushed with colour that matches Sophia’s dress and brings out the fire in Liam’s eyes.

They’re all shades of rose gold and maroon, every colour in between pumping and clenching, and blending in with the flames of the dance floor. 

It burns to look at, so Louis stops looking, turning to find Harry looking back at him with olive and lake-sized eyes. Louis dives in, extinguishes himself.

 

Louis can’t stop his jaw from jittering, teeth fidgeting in his mouth, so he breaks up the shaking with words that he chews and chatters into pieces.

They canter through topics. 

 

Louis’ head won’t sit still, and Harry seems content to point out costumes in the crowd, and listen to Louis explain the patterns, the designs, what the fabric would feel like spread between fingers.

He gets caught on herringbone, trying to describe the motion of the pattern, and he feels Harry breathing out a light laugh at his side.

There’s a delicate shock, a gentle buzzing in Louis’ skull when the insecurity doesn’t hit him, and he laughs too.

 

Outside, unseen and above them, the moon scratches across the sky, and the stars blur into lines.

 

Inside, Louis’ head has been pinned to a carousel. Sights and sounds are spinning by, again and again, repeating until he’s sure he has it all memorized, and could paint the next image on the backs of his eyelids. 

Harry’s talking, and Louis hasn’t missed a word yet, sucking them in from the air between them, pressing his fingerpads into Harry’s waist, and drawing in his essence, like the feet of butterflies.

 

Their place at the back has gotten crowded, the air becoming stifled with breath and bodies.

Louis’ own body is itching to join them, but his mind is still pale and his own, and even with the marathon crashing through his blood he can’t will himself to merge with the crowded swell.

 

But still, the music and the people dancing to it feel dangerous, seductive and vampiric, and Louis knows that if they linger long enough they’ll be drawn into it too, trapped in the midst of it until the sun rises.

Masked faces flock together like gorgons, threatening to freeze their feet where they stand, lock them in place, caught in the sway of the rhythm. 

 

Harry’s soft hands are mossy and plush, and they pull and peel at the roots growing from Louis’ feet, and together they inch off.

 

They escape, just barely, Louis’ fingers burning holes in Harry’s clothes and digging holes through his skin. 

He’s lost the second they step outside the banquet hall, the music now muffled behind the door, shocks of colours gone, surroundings now in academic greys and beiges. 

 

“We should, uh - ” Harry fumbles, both his words and his feet, catching himself clumsily but gently over Louis’ shoulders. He’s drunk, Louis registers, _can’t be trusted to be responsible,_ is what it dulls down to, and a panicked part of his brain is shrieking. 

He shushes it, pretends to console it. 

 

“We should get outside. Clear our heads a bit?” It’s a suggestion, an offer made through fogged up eyes, and Louis nods along, his head feeling a little crooked on his shoulders, bobbing in time to the music. It sounds underwater, clogging up his ears. 

 

They move towards the exit together, Louis feeling blind to gravity, Harry’s arm a savior slouch across his back. 

 

The air outside is a shock of cold that Louis recognizes, and can’t register. It skates nimbly across his skin, but won’t sink in, and he looks down at his bare arms, imagines them thickly furred, lined with some rotting pelt that’s keeping blood and fire trapped inside. 

He laughs, and his head falls back between his shoulders, puppet-like and discarded. 

Harry slumps to a stop beside him, and from an overgrown and distant planet, asks Louis, “what’re you laughing at?” 

Louis clamps and closes his jaw with a dull clunk. It sounds rusted and robotic. 

“I don’t know,” he answers, and laughs again, skin prickling against the cold he isn’t feeling. “I think it’s supposed to be cold out.” 

This has Harry extending out his skinny fingers, wafting them through the air, face contorted in concentration that has Louis’ face aching with a cling-wrap stretch. 

 

“I can’t feel it,” Harry declares, and slinks his blazer off his shoulders. A shy breeze slips under his white shirt, lifts it from his skin, and in a moment of wild clarity, Louis wants to do the same. His own, or Harry’s, he’s just not sure. 

“I can’t feel it either,” Louis says in a breath that tries to mimic the cool night air. 

“I can’t feel _anything,”_ Harry adds, sending Louis a hazy smile that cracks across his skin. 

“Nothing?” Louis’ ears feel fat with maggots, squirming at the sound of traffic out of sight, and the gory thrum of the music shut behind them. 

“Nothing,” Harry agrees, and Louis can see the top buttons of his shirt are undone, and the wind is writing poetry in goosebumps across his skin. 

 

Louis’ eyes feel sharp and hawkish, finding details in things that beg to be ignored, shapes in the stones and cigarettes on the ground, handwritten letters in the texture of the wall.

The same wall that Harry crashes against with a breathy sigh, stretching his hands out to caress the rough callouses of the bricks. 

“Drunk,” he says, and the rich smoke of his voice is so heavy with content Louis can feel it dragging him down too. 

 

But something inside him isn’t dragging down, but swelling up and rising, and it makes his heart gasp in his chest and breath come out fluttering and shallow. 

He makes a soft sound, a lacy whine and it draws Harry’s eyes to him, where they watch the lift and crash of his chest. 

“Alright?” Harry asks, a quiet press in the dim lighting of the stars, and Louis tries to nod, but it twists into a shrug that shakes his head to the side, an unsure and unintentional jerk. 

“It just keeps getting...keeps going,” Louis tries, and he feels the words inflate and get away from him, floating up into the sky like fireflies, and his fingers are too wild to catch them. 

 

“What did you take, anyway?” Harry’s speaking to him with a careful sort of curiosity, picking his words patiently from between his teeth. 

“I don’t know,” Louis answers, and it comes out watery, something frantic trying to find him through the dizziness attacking his toes and fingertips. Harry makes a noise, soft and chiding beside him.

“Aren’t you a wild one,” he says, and Louis shakes his head, dislodging stray tears that are eaten up by the cool air surrounding them.

“I’m not, I shouldn’t have, I’m not usually like this..” It feels like a lie as his tongue begins to stammer, and teeth panic. 

Then the coldness hits him, furiously and all at once, and he’s drawing his arms around himself, quaking and shaking and making a mess of his skin with his fingertips, pulling too tight and turning it pink and angry looking.

“Hey...it’s okay,” Harry’s saying, his feet moving in a crooked shuffle, and he dips a shoulder down to press against Louis’.  
Warmth seeps into Louis’ skin through the thin layer of fabric, and it’s nice, but doesn’t stop the rampage of his heart.

 

Something anxious and furnace shaped is making things bubble in the back of his head, coals burning bright enough to blind him, and he shuts his eyes to block out the light.  
He finds he can’t control his muscles well enough to stand still and upright, and he backs himself against the wall, feeling the grain of it reach out and snack at him through his costume. His legs lock and sway, threaten to give out, and suddenly there’s a driving force grasping at his waist, hands attached to arms attached to shoulders, each piece oversized and holding on to him, pushing him up with a careful but clumsy force.

Through his blindness he can almost understand the way his body is shaking, violent but feathery, wracked by the uneven breaths his lungs are sucking in, then retching out. 

 

It feels worse than usual. 

 

The part of his brain that reminds him uselessly but tirelessly that it isn’t a heart attack, isn’t going to kill him, has been shut off by whatever wretched chemicals he swallowed.

It’s worsened still by the slow-dawning fact that he’s being pinned to a wall by a stranger, that no one knows he’s even outside, in the dark, in the cold.

 

His mouth parts on stiff and screeching hinges, and a cry of panic and terror is waiting in his throat, but it cuts off before it can fully start, as words are shaped and pressed to the clammy skin of his neck. 

 

“I had this one friend, never did anything more than have a few drinks, smoke a bit of spliff with people at parties...” 

Louis can taste his pulse, hammering out a sick flavour into his mouth, but he’s somehow still, somehow silent. Harry continues.

“One day a couple people decided to make a batch of brownies...y’know, with weed baked into them. And they were the heavy stoner types. I’m not really into that, so I don’t know the measurements...” Harry’s hands have slipped lower on Louis’ waist, finding a comfortable hold, and Louis slumps into it, imagining his palms holding his organs in place. “...but basically it was double? Like the normal amount. Double that.” 

The methodical, loping pace of Harry’s words have trapped the rush of horror clamoring through Louis’ mind and body. Breathing shakily, he tips his head towards the sound, and finds it to be tar-like, honey-like, and he’s trapped. 

“There was a fairly big group of people hanging out. Maybe seven or eight?” A slow and drunken chuckle touches Louis’ neck, and he shivers at the heat. “Not really a big group...but big for just, just people hanging out in close quarters I guess. Anyway.” 

 

There’s a pause and Louis finds the courage to crack his eyes open. Above them, the stars are spinning, and he shuts his eyes again. 

 

“The pan was just left in the kitchen, on the stove, and it was basically up for grabs, whoever was there who wanted some... My friend had never had it like that - weed, I mean, never had it not smoked...never had it baked into something...so he just cut what he thought was a normal size.” There’s another low laugh against Louis’ neck, and those hands holding his organs in run up his sides, gentle in their force, coaxing an almost-even breath from his throat. 

“No one knew he hadn’t had edibles before, so no one told him how it was just - ” a hand comes off Louis’ side to wave in a swooping zigzag through the air - _“different_ from the other kind of high...” 

Harry pulls back, and Louis whines at the loss of heat and pressure. The weight of Harry’s body eases back in carefully, and he raises an arm to skate a hand through Louis’ hair. It’s damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead. 

“He ended up getting _so_ high. He couldn’t walk - couldn’t stand at all, really, kept saying all these things...about how he was seeing everything that had ever happened all at once, and all this stuff that hadn’t happened yet. Like his thoughts had been unplugged, turned into a projection screen for every possibility.” Harry draws back far enough to cup Louis’ chin in his hand. Louis slivers his eyes open.

Looking up at him like this, Louis can see that his eyes are hooded from alcohol, clouded and earnest. He shuts his eyes again. 

“He kept saying _‘I’m dying,’_ and you could tell he meant it. Believed it. Kept saying _‘what if it lasts forever?’_ ” Harry’s thumb is stroking an uncoordinated motion across Louis’ cheek. 

“He finally fell asleep a while after. Slept it off, next day he was completely fine.” 

 

Then there’s silence, save for the rushing sound of waves as Harry brushes his cheek. Louis can feel it inside his mouth and behind his skin. 

The hush urges him to open his eyes again, and when he does he sees Harry’s face lit up by the moonlight, shadowed and bright, and just a breath away from his own. It’s too close to be this unfamiliar, and he’s still shaken. 

 

“Let’s get you back inside,” Harry says after a beat, and one thousand beats of Louis’ heart. “Get you back to your friends.” It’s an earthy mumble against his neck as Harry turns him around, bumps him towards the building’s entrance. 

 

Louis walks, or tries to, on trembling legs, and his mouth won’t stop trying to form apologies. Harry waves them off, his head heavy as he does his best to steer them in, away from the cold that managed to sink into both of them. 

 

By the time he can feel the music rumbling and writhing to get under his skin, Louis’ head feels miles higher and not quite so stricken. 

 

Inside, the party seems to have evolved into something new and horrifying. The flowers along the walls bloom and wilt and bloom again as Louis blinks, and the swirls of costumed bodies look like the pulse and writhe of insects, and skinless animals.

 

Somehow, Louis spots a rabbit in the crowd, and as he watches it turns, peels off its face to look back at him. 

 

Niall greets them with a gruesome leer that seems to distort him further, revealing too many teeth, too big for his mouth, and Louis has to look away.

 

“Where’s Liam?” Louis asks once they’re within earshot, and he’s sick and dazed, skull ready to collapse in on itself.

“Dunno. I’m not his keeper,” Niall answers with an unhelpful shrug, and he moves in, leaving a trail of slime that glistens on the floor.  
His hands are wormy and alive, poking out from matted, furry sleeves, and Louis wants to run from them, but they just keep coming, elongating and stretching for him. 

 

Around them, the dance floor is breathing and breeding, ropes coiling and oozing in Louis’ stomach. 

 

“Let’s go find him,” Harry’s saying, and unthinkably moving to walk through the clustered bodies.

Louis reels back, his toes curling, trying to hold on to the floor through his shoes. His head shakes on its own, back and forth, fast enough to hurt. 

Harpies and fauns and trolls are mashing their bodies together, jaws dropped open in soundless shrieks and moans, and Louis is paralyzed, eyes glued to them, sticky and congealed. 

 

“Do you want to stay here?” Harry’s voice rips back to him, and Louis gapes his mouth, uselessly trying to answer. Harry’s fingers come to rest on his arm, and they’re damp and easy. 

“I’ll go get him. I’ll be right back, okay?” It’s as reassuring as he can make it, and when he turns, the ground crackles underfoot. Louis looks and find it’s made of cellophane. 

 

Niall doesn’t comment on the wild look streaking through Louis’ eyes, or the way his hands are shaking. Instead, he claps a hammy hand over his shoulders and aims a ginny and frosted grin at his face. 

“Must be feeling it, eh, Lou?” And for a heartbeat all Louis is feeling is the need to correct him, slap the nickname from his mouth, tell him that belongs to Liam and no one else. Instead, he sags and does his best to nod. This seems to satisfy Niall, who rocks back on his heels.

“Some pretty good stuff, this. Just keeps spiking.” He spikes a hand into the air to emphasize. Louis flinches away from it, knocking Niall’s hand off his shoulders. 

“When does it peak?” He asks. Words are nearly impossible, misshapen and filled with cotton stuffing. 

“Few hours. These things are like a roller coaster.” Niall leans in, putting his face inches from Louis’. His eyes are uneven and bloodshot, and Louis recoils. “It’s a slow build up, up, _up, up....up….”_ Niall’s hands have come in to brace on either side of Louis’ face. “A bit of calm...and then _bang!”_ Louis jumps out of his skin as Niall shouts suddenly, shaking his skull in the process and laughing maniacally at his reaction. 

“You gotten there yet?” He asks conversationally while Louis shakes, eyes so wide they’re ready to split open at the edges. 

Louis can feel the vibrations of the room tremble in his eyelashes as he shakes his head.

“Everything just keeps getting more and more intense, Niall, I can’t handle it,” he says, feeling a waterfall begin a rough trickle down his cheeks, crashing and frothing on the rocks beneath. “It’s like my head’s getting too big...feels too big for my body.” His fingernails begin a soft crawl across his forearms, scratching and digging into the flesh there. Niall watches impassively.

“You’re _fine._ Just enjoy it, stop panicking.” 

The words come like a fish-wet slap across Louis’ face and his skin crawls. His hands bunch and flex at his sides, and he realizes with a sick kind of numbness how close he is from lashing out, actually hitting someone. 

There’s another rush of toxins to his brain, and it feels like violence, like courage, a blood-red taste of all the things he’s never had inside. 

 

He ages, greys, rots, and is birthed out of the music that’s roaring and salivating through the air. 

His skeleton becomes dust, and then liquid, a tireless spiral through his body and a second eyelid stretches over, out across his pupils, vast as the sky, and a pink film comes on, staining his vision and tainting his corneas. 

 

Harry finds them again, and Louis is six hundred years old, born again with each beat of his heart, growing old and dying before the air leaves his body with each breath.

 

“Jesus, Lou, you alright?” A voice that sounds like yellow light reaches him through the chaos, and his heart leaps, seizing and pounding out against his ribcage. 

Louis makes a noise, something strumming and strangled, and he pushes forwards, away from where Niall’s fingers have been implanting pupas under his skin. 

He finds himself encased in arms strong as iron and steel.

 

“Where’ve you been?” He cries against Liam’s chest, and a soft hand comes streaking through his hair, mussing and marring it further. 

“You’ve only been gone twenty minutes, love, what’s happened?” Liam says gently, as soft as his voice can be without going unheard. Some vital gear stops turning in Louis’ head, unable, refusing to process.

“Hasn’t been twenty minutes,” he finally says tearfully into Liam’s shirt. He’s staining it, wrinkling it, and he doesn’t care, prays Liam doesn’t care, wonders why he wouldn’t. 

“Alright, Lou, what do you need?” Liam’s asking him, still carding a hand through his hair. Green and orange flames are licking at the backs of Louis’ eyes, and he isn’t sure what he needs. 

“I just want to be someone who doesn’t care,” he says, and it sounds ragged.  
Liam sighs above him, and Louis can smell rum and sweat and irritation expelling rash-like across his skin. 

 

“Let me take you back to your room,” Liam’s saying, and Louis’ skin stiffens, because that means leaving, that means taking Liam away from his night out, that means proving them right, disrupting everyone and causing a scene. 

He’s already causing a scene, and this has him backing out of Liam’s arms, feet uneven across the floor, all checkered and lit up.

“No!” He protests. It’s sudden and violent and terrible. “No,” he repeats, tries to soften it, makes it limp and lifeless in the process. “I’m supposed to stay until twelve.” It comes out skinny and petulant. 

He looks up at the wrong time, and catches Liam’s glance to Sophia, tight-lipped and coated with exasperation. A stiff-necked shrug, a short shake of the head that writes Louis off as being a nuisance, a burden that’s spoiling their plans, ruining their night. 

Louis tries to curl inwards, make himself smaller. It’s impossible. 

 

“Okay, Lou,” Liam says, drawing him back in after another lifetime wriggles by and shrivels on the multicoloured floor, trampled by paw pads and cloven hooves.

 

“Supposed to stay until twelve,” Louis repeats, only now it’s a whisper pressed to the collar of Liam’s shirt. The stitching absorbs it. “Supposed to be here with Harry.” Liam shuffles at this, pulling back enough to look down at Louis.

“Are you getting on with him?” Liam asks, and it’s a quiet murmur spoken into his ear, private and hushed. “Has he done something? Set you off, is that why - ?” 

“No,” Louis says, feeling fussy and small. He tries to squirm his way out of Liam’s arms, but they’re too strong, locked around his frame, and he’s caught.

“Are you sure? This was a bad idea, do you need me to talk to him?” Liam pushes, and Louis’ shaking his head, neck piping up with a faint twinge at the angle. 

“No, Li, it’s just me, it’s just this stupid...” he goes silent, still softly rocking his head back and forth. The yellowish stain of Liam’s attention is flowering out across his face, but it’s not the tone he wants it in, too harsh and too demanding, aggressive and accusatory. 

 

“Lou, you don’t have to stay with him just because I said it might be a good idea,” Liam’s pressing, and Louis wants to cry, wants to laugh at how twisted this night’s gotten. 

 

Dragonflies and aphids have nestled in amid the flowers, and the aphids are getting eaten. 

 

“I want to try new things, Li,” Louis whispers through the massacre. Liam hums a questioning sound. It rocks the floor like thunder. 

“I want to be spontaneous,” it’s even softer than the first breath, his tongue tinted lavender, and sour.

“I don’t think you can handle much more spontaneity,” Liam says, delicate in the way he’s reprimanding him. “Tried being spontaneous earlier, and look at what you’ve done to yourself.”

There’s a rude noise from outside of the world Louis’ made in Liam’s arms, and he jumps, twists to find Niall scoffing behind them. 

“He’s just tripping out, quit coddling him, Liam,” Niall says, huffing out bad-breathed annoyance, and Louis almost wants to agree, but stands silent and terrified, eyes saucer-like and lit with trembles.

 

“I’m not _coddling,_ Niall, I’m just looking out for him,” Liam says hotly. “Something I wouldn’t have to do if you hadn’t drugged him in the first place.” Louis’ body lurches in a desperate squirm, trying for the first time in all his hundreds of lives to escape from Liam’s arms. It feels messy and backwards, like he’s torn out some vital part of himself, and now it’s hanging, bloody, by strings and threads of tissue.

“I didn’t _make_ him take _anything,”_ Niall says evenly. “You’re the one holding him against his will,” he adds haughtily. 

At this, Liam’s hands fly off Louis’ skin as if he’s burned him. Louis goes slack instantly, head reeling at the volume, skin buzzing with the weight of the air, suddenly hostile and electric.

 

“I’m going to grab Zayn from outside, okay?” Liam’s got his mouth set in a firm line, his no-nonsense, _I’ll take care of this_ persona poking out through the fervor of the room. “I’d feel a lot better if there were a few more people around while you’re like this.” 

_‘While you’re like this’_ begins to burn a hole through Louis’ skull, leaking grey matter like fat drippings from his ears. 

“Please, don’t waste your night looking after me,” Louis says, and it’s a timid noise, mouse-like and feeble. It’s drowned out by Niall barking something out at the same time. 

“Christsake, Liam, he’s not going to overdose or something...” There’s irritation and disgust spewing from the corners of his lips while he talks. 

A rare flash of clarity hits Louis, and the airbag punches a hole through his lungs. The sudden feist and bite in Niall’s tongue and posture, and the way his fingers are tap-tapping together isn’t really anger at Liam at all, but anger at the way he’s taken Louis away, stolen him out of his pelted grasp. 

He’s been rescued, Louis registers dimly, but he still feels caught in a snare, seconds away from chewing off his foot. 

 

“It’s just a panic attack, Li,” he says, meek and wounded, and Liam’s eyes - still yellow and lamp-like as they flick back to him - seem to diffuse. 

 

“Did I do something wrong?” Another voice asks, deep and growling, but meek as well, drunk and simply apologetic, regretful. 

There’s a heartbeat where Louis can’t place the voice at all, eyes spinning blindly through the crowd before they find Harry, slouched off to the side of Niall. 

 

“No,” Louis answers, a bit too late, but honest. 

 

Liam’s hands stroke a hard-pressed line up Louis’ back before he speaks.

“I’m sorry, Louis has some trouble with meeting new people...” 

 

And Louis’ jaw sets and starts a fire with how hard it’s clenching, listening to Liam apologize on his behalf, making excuses for him.

 

“Is _that_ it?” Harry asks, and it’s puzzled, maybe a bit confrontational. 

 

“Didn’t you tell him?” Louis asks Liam, and it comes out squeakily, too fragile to be indignant. 

“I didn’t say anything too personal, I mentioned you were a bit shy - ” 

_“‘A bit shy?’”_ Louis hisses, tongue sliding snake-like over his teeth. Heat flares up along his neck and he can taste scales. “It’s a fucking anxiety disorder, it’s not _shyness!”_ Liam looks appropriately upset, but it does nothing to quell the shame and fury blending a cocktail of bile in Louis’ throat. 

“Everybody’s got something,” Harry says easily while Liam’s lips part emptily. “I think he’s fine. S’just really crowded in here...overwhelming for anyone.” Louis blinks at him, eyes glassy and owlish, and he feverishly wonders if that’s why it feels as if there’s something caught it his throat, made of compacted hair and bones. 

 

Harry inches towards him in his silence.

 

“Let’s go sit,” Sophia says, and the control in her voice closes Liam’s mouth, chases away conflict. 

Harry nods along, and his hand lifts and towers, a vague gesture to the wall where the spattering of chairs have been abandoned. 

“Get out of the crowd, and just settle for a bit,” Sophia continues smoothly, and she cuts between Liam and Harry, her hands rich and cool, coming to cup under Louis’ chin, and turn him the right way. “Should I get rid of Niall?” She says just to him as they walk, his feet feeling swollen and uncoordinated. He shakes his head miserably, trying to reject the way his body’s gone pliant and cooperative under her touch.

 

They make it to the back, the others trailing behind them, leaving a faded line of foam through the air, an imprint of their path. 

Sophia guides Louis into a chair, and her fingers dip down into the side of her dress, come out with a tissue that sweeps gently over his cheeks, erasing tears he hadn’t known had fallen. She parts his hair, sweeps it to the right softly, and his only clear thought is how he hadn’t noticed pockets sewn into her dress, and he dully congratulates the designer. 

 

Niall leaves, predictably, with Louis no longer defenseless. Liam watches him go before muttering about ducking outside, and vanishes too. 

 

As galaxies churn and collapse behind his eyes, Louis sags, stretched too thin, defeat swimming in his throat.

Sophia sits beside him, passing him a bottle of water, and opening it when his hands shake. It follows an uneven path to his lips, and he tries to swallow. Her hands are gentle-boned, and Louis can’t remember a time he’s ever seen her shaken. 

 

Around them the hall is screaming and muted, popping in his ears. 

 

Her dress is spun from stars and streamers, lilac coloured, all parted lips and flushed chests. The easy rise of her lungs beneath the fabric jars a confused bullet through Louis’ gut, and it lodges in his spine, reverberating up in spikes of heat and worry.

 

“This won’t last forever,” Sophia is saying to him, and her voice chimes, bells against the grain of the stifled air. It’s clear and poised, and tickles at base of Louis’ wrists, stirring up an itch that demands to be clawed out and fed to the crowd.

The words send Louis back to being pressed against brick, eyes wild and skin putty as a steady ramble is pushed into his neck. It doesn’t help the gunshot wound, bleeding out and spreading warmth through his abdomen. 

 

But the soft-winged melody of her voice is soothing, and with the dim comfort of being backed against a wall, pressure is subsiding in Louis’ head. But still, the rushes underneath are unrelenting, and his teeth threaten to crack and pull apart with the thought of it amplifying further.

 

“How do you feel?” Harry asks from his side, and Louis can’t seem to turn on his hinges fast enough to look at him. 

“Feel too big for my body,” he answers, and it tastes familiar. His fingers have begun scratching at his skin, and Harry’s move down to capture them, and hold them in a warm and gentle prison. The itch lessens. 

The ridiculousness of his costume strikes him again, and he wants to vomit a laugh onto the floor.

“Eat me, drink me, you know?” He says wildly instead, and Harry’s laugh is a heavy flash of brilliance.

 

Through all of this, a hollow shape has been forming, evacuating Louis’ chest cavity to fill with tight breaths and a deep, dark nagging. 

He wonders if he might inflate and leave the ground, weightless and empty and rejected by gravity. 

Terror has latched onto the soles of his shoes with this detached thought, and they tap out a senseless rhythm against the floor. He tries to reason with the beat, harness it as a confirmation that he’s still earthbound, but he can’t shake the thought from where it’s been implanted. 

 

He takes another long drink from the bottle when Sophia offers it to him a second time, and she seems pleased when he gasps a breath in after, thanking her between pants.

Inside, he can feel it pouring down, and it feels blue, an attempt at something calming. It doesn’t feel like enough to secure him to the ground, and he grips tighter on Harry’s hands in his lap. Their fingers sweat together, and time froths and dribbles to a slow stop.

 

Louis‘ mind is building sandcastles when Liam finds his way back, with Zayn filling in his footsteps, unruffled despite his perch outside, eyes pinker, shoulders looser, but untransformed. 

Zayn’s skin is lit up amber from the lights, and he doesn’t make a fuss, or point a comment towards the fireworks that have taken up residence in Louis’ eyes.

Louis can barely recognize them when they approach, all golden with their edges rippling, but they’ve been gone for years, and he can’t imagine he’s been expected to remember every line of detail. 

 

Harry gingerly releases his hands, and Louis turns to see him ease back on his chair, looking boneless and relaxed since Louis’ been sitting almost comfortably, eyes almost dry. 

On his other side Sophia is a brushstroke of carnation pink, body slinking and upright.

 

Liam has been taking in the scene, eyes hazy but critical.

“Are you alright?” He asks, his voice lilted with alcohol but still steady and driven. 

Louis isn’t alright, but a voice in his head is nagging at him, telling him it’ll make things worse to say out loud, and his fingers claw white lines along his arms.

“Yeah,” and it’s a lie but it’s an thin lie, white and excusable, and Liam looks half-ready to believe him. “I’m fine, Li,” and there comes the other half. 

Sophia rises smoothly, and Liam slides into her seat, crowding close to Louis quick enough that he barely has time to miss her closeness, and translate it to reveling in his. 

“You’re sure? You don’t need to leave?” Liam presses. Behind him, Sophia shifts her feet. It’s restless, worried, watching Louis over Liam’s shoulder with a protective softness in her eyes. Louis wants to flush it out of her. 

He talks quickly to cover up the urge. 

“No, want to stay for a bit,” he says, jaw still moving too quickly, and gnawing at the block-shaped words. “You don’t have to take me back.” Liam makes a noise, a low _hm_ that doesn’t feel convinced. 

“Really. I’m going back with Harry later,” Louis presses, determination grabbing hold of his chin and fighting to keep it steady. 

He’s completely overthrown by the thoughts and dizziness stirring potions in his head and stomach. He says it with half intent to make Liam mad, get him fiery and jealous and change his mind, take him home. 

He isn’t sure what the other half is brought on by. A crawling desire to shock Liam, maybe, and prove that he’s capable of something impulsive.

 

A fast blinking wave of surprise passes over Liam’s face, and Louis crumbles. Of course the jealousy was never rooted there to spark up, but the shock looks more like disbelief than anything else.

 

Something twinges inside him, and makes him twist to look over at Harry. He’s watching their exchange with sleepy eyes and a rival energy beneath his skin. There’s a puzzled sort of frown etched across his face, and Louis snaps his head back to Liam so he doesn’t start picking apart what it means or who it’s for. 

 

“Please just go,” he whispers, and it transfers through the noise to leave a hurt sort of shimmer in Liam’s eyes. “Go have fun,” Louis tries to clarify. He can feel the words getting stuck together in his mouth. 

“Are you going to stay here?” Liam asks carefully, and his eyes are all over Louis’ face, an intoxicated scan, with worry and responsibility shining blindingly through the glaze. Louis nods too late, then can’t seem to stop, the music grasping hold of his brain stem and jerking his skull to the beat. Rhythm seems to have invaded his body, and he sways on his chair, a living pulse, subdued but still alive. 

“Yeah. Feeling better,” Louis says, listening to how breathy and strange his voice has become. “I was having fun before...” he lets it run off. “Soph, tell him,” he says, his eyes burning up with neon light and glory, finding her lit up by the backing crowd. “Tell him I’m fine.” 

“He’ll be alright, Liam. We’ll come back and check on him soon, okay?” She directs it at Liam, but her eyes move back to Louis, dark and firm, and they reach him like a quiet reprimand. She offers him a teasing pout that turns into a smile, and he basks in the fondness as he sidles into Liam’s side, his hands contradicting his body and his want as they raise to push him away.

Liam accepts it coming from her, and it makes bile squirm across Louis’ tongue. 

 

Liam stands, takes her hand in his own and the movement pangs in Louis’ chest. He tries to look away as they break off and part through the crowd, but his eyes are wild and near-rolling, and follow their movement from every angle at once. 

The ache seems to live inside his skull and lungs, tucked up beneath his eyelids, over pupils that are as fathomless and bottomless as the pit he’s fallen down. 

 

He forgets his company and conversation, lapsing into a silence that leaves a ringing in his ears. 

 

His mind keeps playing a loop of an African veldt, washing the crowd out into bone-bleached shades of sun and stained teeth. 

He’s on red-alert, nervous eyes peeling through the crowd, always jumping, half expecting to see a slime-handed, pelted creature looming in a shadowed nook. 

The paranoia stretches his eyes makes him feel like some grass-eater that’s lost the cover of tall bushes, and can’t find its way.

Surges snake through the music and nip at him, forcing more coats of burning red heat and hostility over his heart and his hands, gripping like vices at the hem of his dress, and making him clench his jaw. 

Anger flies with frustration, unsure of where to be directed, and as a section of the crowd parts and splits off too close to where he’s sat, Louis jumps, his legs antelopes that try to scatter, and the fury leaks out.

 _“I don’t want to be prey,”_ he whispers as the red sear picks up in the corners of his eyes, ready to spill and burn down his cheeks. 

 

“You what?” A heavy voice beside him asks, and he reels in his chair, flashing towards and away from the source.

“I - oh,” he stutters, startled to find Harry there beside him, sitting casually like he has been all along, still disheveled from the wind. 

Harry looks at him, a slow blink of pale green that washes the thoughts of yellow plains from his head.

 

“Nothing. Just rolling, I guess,” Louis says in a halted and weightless way. 

Harry shifts in his chair, brings up a heavy hand to pat against Louis’ thigh, obscured by layers of ruffled material. And beneath that, a red fire burning so hot Louis’ terrified it’ll scald them both. 

 

Instead of flinching and blistering, Harry digs a hand into the pocket of his trousers. Louis flinches for him, and watches as he pulls out a deck of cards, fumbles a flourish with a grin. 

“Impressed?” Harry asks, and Louis nods that he is, and has to smile at the tease in Harry’s voice. 

“Wait ‘til you see my next trick,” Harry says, looking pleased, and he flicks his wrists to shuffle the deck. The gesture starts off smoothly, but his fingers move like knots, and a few cards slip through, scattering to the floor. Harry snorts out a laugh, then sighs, drawing out the sound to emphasis his suffering. It sounds whimsical to Louis. 

 

“I’m a bit too drunk for the complicated stuff...how’s ‘go fish’ sound?” Harry asks, and his smile spreads easily. 

 

The suits and numbers blur to shapes, Louis eyes focusing on Harry’s face instead.

Harry doesn’t seem to mind the weightless shift of Louis’ stare or the crease of his forehead as he tries to make sense of the rules, and simply pulls the right cards from his fingers, amused and encouraging. 

Soon there’s a discard pile pooling at their feet, and a fragile laugh bubbling and sitting prettily on Louis’ tongue.

 

The music hits and swims around their heads, and Louis can see the Jacks and Queens dancing to it, flat and writhing, squirmy things held tightly in his hands.

 

Liam and Sophia have worked their way back towards them again, close enough to be seen, but still a part of the swelling crowd, and not the stragglers and conversationalists at the back. 

They’re distantly supervising, chaperones that make Louis feel childish, and resentful when the fire spikes through his blood. 

 

A small section parts, dancers lithe and sidestepping to make room, and Zayn makes his way through the gap, more stagger in his step. He brushes past Sophia with an aloofness Louis could never manage sober, and digs his hand into the meat and muscle of Liam’s arm.

Louis knows he must be hot beneath the thick jacket material, and there’s something light and sparkling in his chest, happy in sadism that he’s kept it on. 

 

Zayn’s hushed shout to Liam over the music is too loud. Louis blames his volume on the alcohol, maybe a touch of something else rolled up in his cigarettes, and he can’t stop himself for leaning into the sound, tracking it.

“Should we check on Lou?” Liam’s answer comes, drunk but still inconspicuous, and then, “I know he looks like he’s having a good time, but what if he’s pretending?” Liam angles his head differently, and the new, exposed angle sends his quieter words over to Louis.

“He said he wanted to stay, go back with Harry later,” and Louis can detect, even through the haze, a strange sort of shrug there in Liam’s words. There’s a disbelieving snort from Zayn, and Liam brushes it off, clearly just humouring what Louis’ told him. 

Louis can feel steam begin to scorch the back of his neck. 

“Let’s just stick around until he decides he wants to go home. Not going to be long now, he’s a fucking mess.” There’s a nastiness in Zayn’s voice that Louis’ never heard directed at him before, and it cuts, slices him down to the bone, and stings. The blood wells up and doesn’t spill until Louis recognizes the sharpness of the pain as what it is. 

And that’s the worst of it, not the blood or the agony, but the notes of betrayal that seep in and infect him. 

 

“It’s your turn.” Harry’s words are a gentle press that bring him back. Louis feels himself descending through clouds, stomach flipping and skin feeling cold and wet as his feet find the ground again. 

The impact lurches him forwards, and the edge of his chair jerks to get away from him. He topples unsteadily, and there’s a moment of sheer panic that shrieks and dies in his guts before Harry’s leaning forwards unevenly, steering his hands around Louis’ torso and keeping him from falling. 

Louis finds his feet have half-caught him, and he’s capable of standing, finding his balance, but instead he shifts into Harry’s hold, adjusting until they’re sharing a seat, and Harry turns to tuck him into his side, his chin coming to press against Louis’ temple.

The contact feels hot and soft and mammalian. 

 

“They don’t believe I’ll do it,” Louis mumbles. Someone has sanded down the edges of his vowels, and the music is pattering around them. “They don’t believe I can do anything.” It’s unfair, untrue, and it feels dark and bitter, forming funnel clouds over his head as soon as it’s spoken. 

“You can, though,” Harry says against his skin, and it’s a hot and prickling admission. “Anything you want.” 

Anything he wants, and Louis isn’t sure what that is.

 

While he contemplates, some creeping redness begins to chew at his toes, consuming and dyeing his skin. The anger from before, the bite behind his canines, and he lets it in, lets it bubble and try to take over. It feels just as alien as when the panic finds him and rises up, but the red feels stronger.

It’s as if something has been stalking him the whole night, now closing the distance and running full tilt, some patch-furred, long clawed, man-eater of a beast that closes its jaws around his throat and infects him, furious and bold. 

 

There comes a crashing wave, crimson and terrible, of all the things that have been nibbling at him. Violence and rage, frustration boiled down to an anger so hot it blurs out the surrounding colours. It’s bloody and carnal and swelling up in his bones, craving and crippling and screaming to be sated. 

And with it, that hollowness in his body is shrieking, roaring, demanding to be fed and filled.

 

It hits him, edged and spiked and terrible, how absurd and pathetic it is, sitting against the back wall, child-like and spineless while the party spins and shakes around him. 

Pointed daggers of warmth and shame of never joining the riot himself, and the disbelieving pigments in Liam’s eyes and Zayn’s voice make too much sense for him to handle.

And all the while, that hollowness is screeching in his chest, open mouthed and begging.

This warm blooded urge between his fingers and toes, this cannibalistic craving to have something hot and living fill the cavity that’s aching and throbbing inside. 

 

He finds his feet, stands and teeters and wonders if they’ll hold him. Harry rises beside him, limby and questioning, pressing a hand to Louis’ hip as he sways. 

 

“Can we leave?” Louis says, and it’s almost lost to the crashing music, but Harry catches it, eyebrows creasing.

“Sure,” he replies, tongue as thick as the chaos raging though Louis’ skull. “You feel okay?” 

Louis’ posture shakes at Harry’s misinterpretation, and he tries to ease the tension in his clenching jaw.

“Feel fine,” he says, turning and pressing into the loose hold Harry has on his hip. “Feel _good,”_ he emphasizes. His balance is thrown and he brings his arms up to place around Harry’s waist, praying that it’s bold enough, because he’s running out of courage, despite the crimson flares licking up his bones. 

Harry holds him there for a moment, and Louis wonders if the monster curled around the pit of his stomach is going to starve or not. 

 

Louis watches as understanding tongues it’s way into Harry’s eyes, so green and clouded and underwater. It’s slow dawning, but when it hits, Harry tugs Louis into his body, and the heat is almost overpowering. 

 

Outside it’s gotten colder, and Louis’ head feels several steps behind his body, struggling to keep up. He’s against the current trying to keep up with his thoughts, swallowing lungfuls of saltwater that leave his tongue dry and bitter. 

He lets Harry’s hand consume his, and combined their steps are almost in line. 

 

Louis’ pace is slow, and laced with commas as his neck twists, trying to tip back, caught up in the heavens. 

 

The moon is pregnant amid the stars, fat with stones and astronauts, painting lyrics down against their skin and goading out a cry in Louis’ lungs.

 

He feels feral, caught in the clawed fingers of lycanthropy and he pulls at Harry’s sleeve, pretending the feeble tug is enough to tear and dislocate. 

Harry turns, spun off balance but he catches himself, laughing, and turning Louis with him.

 

Louis looks up at him, looks up into him and he can see the moon haunting Harry’s eyes. 

 

His own feel overcast, too full and stuffed with nebulas, and Harry’s littered with starlight.

 

And Harry’s skin is ghostly, the bright stain of his mouth clashing with the burn of Louis’ skin.

 

“Howl,” Louis urges, his voice distant waves, and Harry laughs, crashing thunder, tilts his head back and obeys. 

 

Louis can feel a scream shaking its way across his own tongue, wild and powerful and untamed. 

 

The sound that comes out is a soft laugh that chimes out against the night, and Harry’s hand slides just as soft against his shoulder. 

 

Louis’ feet take him to his dorm. He doesn’t know how he makes it with the way his feet feel too large for his body, or how he finds it through the maze of dirt paths along the campus lawns.

And once he stammers his way through the door, a negative rush of something cold and grey finds him. 

 

It’s once they’re both inside his room, just through the doorframe, that Louis’ anger evaporates into a fading slow shock of what he’s done.

 

It’s dark, and Louis doesn’t offer up the light switch, standing frozen in place as Harry’s feet stumble, and he catches himself, sitting down hard on Louis’ mattress. 

Dark, but not quite dark enough to stop the colours from swirling and dazzling behind Louis’ eyes, so he sits too in an attempt to push away the dizziness buzzing around his skull like stars.

 

It’s amplified, how alone they are together, and there hasn’t been a time when Louis’ had another person in here, sitting with him. Another person that hasn’t been Liam, and just thinking of Liam makes something clench and ache inside, a pain reminded by his absence, with nothing to cling to, nothing to compare to the boy beside him. 

 

But Harry isn’t asking for comparisons, and seems content to sit with him, all limbs and clumsy sprawling, filling up the space on his bed.

 

The silence is just shy of becoming uncomfortable when Harry breaks it, shuffling closer to Louis’ tense frame.

“You alright?” He asks, and Louis’ struck by just how deep his voice is, with nothing else to distract from it.

“Not really,” Louis admits wetly. Harry’s mouth pulls down at the corners, and he shifts closer. 

“What do you need?” He asks, and his fingers come up to brush against Louis’ arm, raising hairs. Something starved and crimson in Louis’ chest stirs, snarls. It’s a wordless answer to Harry’s question, but Louis bites down on his tongue, unable to voice it. 

Harry picks up Louis’ silence, and his fingers close around his forearm. Louis thinks through the spreading warmth that they must be long enough to wrap around and touch on either side. Maybe long enough to close around his entire body, fingers meeting neatly. 

 

“I need...” There’s no simple answer lined up on his tongue, and Louis turns to look helplessly at Harry, and finds a stare boring into him, pupils swollen, irises pale and slivered in the dark. 

_Just do it,_ Louis’ mind is screaming at itself, _just do it, get it over with!_ and he’s plagued with thoughts of tearing off bandaids, submerging all at once in cold water, dipping fingers into boiling water.

Harry’s right there, his body, and his lips, and Louis can see the want flicker through his eyes, liquor-damp and amplified. 

 

Their mouths touch, and there’s a ripping sear through Louis’ mind, a skin-tightening flood of shocked flesh, a burn that eats away at his bones. 

Harry doesn’t push when Louis reels back, drops his eyes, hands nervously pulling tight to his sides and finding loose threads on his duvet. 

“Okay?” Harry asks simply, and Louis isn’t sure what it’s directed to. The kiss, or the seasick swaying in his head. 

 

There’s another conquering silence, and words and apologies and excuses are piling up in Louis’ mouth. Eventually they spill over.

 

“I’m never like this. I’m not... I only left with you because I wanted to prove that I could... and I can’t, not really.” Louis’ words are broken up by his fingers picking at the bedspread.

 

“It’s okay, you know,” Harry says once he trails off. Louis looks up at him, timid and far-gone, galaxies collapsing in his eyes. “To be either way...” Louis’ fingers still. There’s a strange demand under his skin to sidle closer to Harry, so he does, heartbeat frantic and sore in his chest.

He lands in a flaccid slump against Harry’s chest, one hand digging into the solid line of his thigh in an attempt to maintain balance. Harry hums happily at the contact, and raises an arm to pull around Louis’ side, his other hand moving up to rake through his hair in a roughly delicate caress. 

 

Time halts or fades, Louis can’t quite tell, and each scratch of Harry’s nails against his scalp sends sparks shooting down to his stomach. There’s a voice rasping inside his head, reminding him that Harry was supposed to be a conquest, a point to be proven, a body to be devoured and spat out, ravished and left wanton, but he can’t seem to bring himself to move. 

It nags through his skull, though. Liam’s disbelieving frown, Zayn’s indirect disgust, everyone’s perception of someone so powerless and fragile, unable to follow through with frivolous claims.

Louis wants to prove them wrong, wants to breathe faith into his fingertips, but his spine disagrees, curved and sulking into Harry’s frame. He can feel panic crawling through his vertebrae, even with that red-hot pooling through his gut.

 

“There’s too much..” Louis’ slurring, his words holding hands, craving closeness even in speech. It all runs together, limping and much too fast.

“D’you want me to stop?” Harry asks, his eyebrows grouping in slow-muscled concern, words dripping together.

“Don’t want to stop,” Louis breathes out, something caught in his throat, fleshy and protruding. “Everything’s just...” His fingers scramble for an explanation, and catch on Harry’s stomach. It’s flat, hardened and wondrous. “Everything’s just too intense... there’s too much...” his eyes fall in a zig-zagged sweep across Harry’s abdomen. “There’s too much going on, I can’t focus on, there’s _too much, I can’t - ”_

“Woah, easy,” Harry says, and the long, heavy way his words stretch out are somehow grounding, bring him back down to earth even as his breath hitches and chest collapses. Harry’s hand feels long and heavy too, pressing up Louis’ body, flattening out the creases. “Nothing bad’s going to happen.” 

There’s a shell-shocked moment where Louis blinks at him, wild-eyed and choking on his heartbeat. 

 

Then a strange stillness inside as he believes him. 

 

“Sometimes it just feels like I have to turn off the world.” The words fall like rainwater from Louis’ lips. 

“Five is too many,” Harry says back, tongue clumsy and words easy, and Louis’ brain flickers at the reaction, the words not registering, not recognizable as something anyone’s ever said when he spews some anxious melodrama. 

“What?” It comes out timid and curious, still damp from the downpour.

“Senses,” Harry replies, pulling the scarf from his head in a rough yank. Louis winces as it pulls out hairs, but Harry seems immune to the sting. “C’mere, let me just...” He knocks Louis off his lap, then pulls his head down into his lap in a motion that should be alarming, but Louis lets it happen, and finds his skull cradled by impossibly gentle hands. 

 

Harry’s brow has creased in drunk determination, and he works the scarf around Louis’ head, tugging it down over his eyes.

 

Everything becomes shadowed, then Harry wraps it around again and it goes completely dark, his fingers somehow swift and tying some complex knot at the back of Louis’ head. 

Louis’ left breathing open-mouthed into Harry’s lap. 

“What...?” He gets stuck on the last word he said, the only thing that seems to be left in his throat. 

“Just turning the world off for a bit,” Harry says, and there comes a soft petting, sliding through the knots in his head, pulling them apart painlessly. 

 

Above and around their bodies, stars collapse.

 

“There, how’s that?” Harry says, one million years later, and his voice is a soft purr as his fingers etch patterns into Louis’ skull. 

It doesn’t demand an answer, but Louis can’t help opening his mouth to reply. This has him wrestling his body up again, fussily pulling the scarf from his eyes, unable to imagine speaking without his eyes there to follow the motion of the words, and watch new ones form on Harry’s lips. 

“It’s good, I think,” Louis says. “And you?” Harry’s mouth is a plastic stretch, earthworm pink, and Louis swallows around his tongue.

“I’m good,” Harry answers, breathes, his eyes caught in a lock around Louis’ mouth. 

He leans in, and the terror seems to have lessoned in Louis’ head. Suddenly everything he wants, and everything he wants to prove seems tangible. 

 

There’s a flavour on Harry’s tongue that Louis can’t quite place, and it’s a distraction from the molding of their lips, and the rhythm building. It keeps the pressure at a low roar, and Louis’ grateful, mind not quite caught up to the happenings, or the way Harry’s hands have gripped around his hips, pulling him closer, impossibly closer. 

 

It does catch up, eventually, and Louis breaks the kiss. There’s a damp smacking sound when he does, and he pulls back, his eyes dropping like weights to the bedspread. 

Everything is shadowed and blue-lit in the dark, and there’s comfort in the sameness of it all. 

 

“Something wrong?” Harry asks. The question mark is barely noticeable, and Louis’ hit with a far-away amusement of how simply and drunkenly he’s been talking to him, wound down to a caveman-like pace.

The humour fades away as it’s slowly eaten by the nervousness wracking his spine and gnawing at his toes.

He allows his eyes to ascend cautiously and he finds Harry’s eyes watching him, large and carnivorous. 

A petulant whine picks up in Louis’ head, reminding him with a pout that he was meant to be the carnivore, and his teeth grind together in protest. 

 

“I’ve never done this before,” he says quietly, and the admittance softens the hunger in Harry’s eyes. Softens, but doesn’t satisfy. 

“Never done...?” Harry’s hands are soft and imploring, loosening their hold on Louis’ waist to ease around his fingers instead.

“I mean...I have...” Louis’ voice goes quiet until it’s entirely inaudible, and he wonders how much he can admit to, and how little there is to confess at all. 

“Like this, I meant,” he picks up after a silence choked by the sound of his heart in his throat. “I’ve never just...”

“Taken someone home?” Harry finishes. Their hands stay clasped together, and Harry tightens his fingers. Louis’ heart seizes, terrified and betrayed as his body squirms with wet arousal. 

“Yeah,” he answers thickly, swallowing around the stricken organ. Louis’ gotten closer again, dropping against Harry’s chest.

 

“D’you want to?” Harry asks, and Louis can feel the question, quiet and burning against his scalp. 

“We can just stay like this.” Harry adds, his lips a gentle bruise against Louis’ temple. Slow speech fills gaps that Louis’ creating with his racing pulse. “I’d like that, too.”

 

“I want to,” Louis whispers, and he can’t recognize his voice, flowering against Harry’s collarbone. “I don’t want to be stuck anymore.” 

Harry breathes out a note of questioning, and Louis doesn’t have the words inside to describe what he means, how he’s so sick of living between the lines of panic and idleness, waiting for calm and then drowning in it. 

Instead of trying, he shifts up, into Harry’s hold. There’s an immediate surge through his body, an uncoiling of the monster in his chest, hungry and screaming to be fed with flesh. 

His vision feels washed out and cloudy, and he lets the craving take over, leans in to dine on Harry’s lips. 

 

Their kiss escalates, waving and peaking much like the swelling and swarming in Louis’ veins. By the time he remembers to draw a breath into his quaking lungs, he’s been hauled without finesse into Harry’s lap, sideways and bewildered, panting and gaping.

This new angle has Harry’s mouth positioned over his neck, and Harry sinks his teeth in. Louis feels the blood gasp up to the surface beneath his skin, pumping desperately to get as close as possible to Harry’s tongue.

A rare burst of bravery has Louis fidgeting, shifting his legs to straddling Harry, and the change in position has him feeling the burning heat glowering between their bodies, radiating from Harry’s clothed groin. 

A pink tinted whine comes sliming out of Louis’ throat, and Harry’s hands are mapping out uncharted paths over his body.

 

“Here, this is really nice, don’t want to ruin it,” Harry is mumbling into his neck. 

The words are pure nonsense to Louis until Harry’s hands skirt down and duck under the hem of his dress, latching on and pulling it up over his head in a bizarrely coordinated movement. Louis emits a startled, faded yelp that is captured and swallowed by Harry’s mouth. 

“Alright?” Harry asks against his lips, and Louis pulls away to nod, before hiding his face shyly into Harry’s neck.

“Feels nice,” he says quietly.

“You’re so sweet,” Harry coos, fingers rippling up Louis’ sides. “Bet you taste sweet, too...” His lips capture the shell of Louis’ ear, softly. Too soft to be paired with the violent jolts up Louis’ spine with the contact. 

 

The insecurity hasn’t reached him yet, still held at bay by the shock of suddenly being almost naked, wrapped up in Harry’s arms.

“I want to eat you out,” Harry is now purring in his ear, and at first it doesn’t register, Louis’ thoughts still tangled in nets of carnivores and cannibals. 

When it finally hits him what’s been said, he squeaks, pulling back with his cheeks burning to flames. His hands move shakily to clasp in his own lap, unable to look Harry in the eye or find a suitable response. 

“Did I say something wrong?” Harry asks, and Louis bites down a quiver on his bottom lip, listening to how carefully Harry’s been treading between slow caution and drunken want. 

“No,” he finally whispers.

“‘No,’ it’s alright?” Harry prods, his hands holding steady on Louis’ lower legs. “Or ‘no,’ you don’t want it?” 

 

Outside, the night is at a standstill, something black and infinite that can’t sink its claws beyond the windowsill to infect them. 

 

“It’s alright,” Louis breathes out, and hundreds of tiny insects are expelled from his lungs as he does. “It’s just that...I’ve never...” He’s droned out by the metallic flickering out wings, and thinks of aphids, dragonflies, tiny creatures he remembers from one thousand lifetimes ago. 

 

“No one’s ever done that for you before?” There’s an earnest note of disbelief in Harry’s voice, accompanying the awe as he speaks, low and intimate.

“No,” Louis answers curtly, keeping his eyes down and his hands to himself. Around them, insects swarm.

 

“Deplorable.” Harry’s voice is a low-pitched, drunken chirp that makes Louis want to laugh and roll and get to know him. But timidness has found him again, latching on in these weird fractured moments between rushes.

 

Harry’s hands come creeping in, smoothing a path up from Louis’ calves to the backs of his knees. He feels his bones melt under the warmth.

Sitting primly on his lap, Harry’s erection hot between his legs, Louis feels prudish.

 

The feeling only grows when Harry leans back to tug his shirt off. He moves back in to gather his hands under Louis’ thighs, and reposition him across the mattress. 

When Harry bends down to kiss him, it’s with a smell of citrus and something murky written across a broad torso. 

 

Louis tries to breathe as Harry strokes a hand across his body, tries to breathe and tries to get everything inside to slow, but breath isn’t coming, slow isn’t coming, it’s too much all over, and the fabric is rich and silky across his face as Harry turns the world off again.

 

There’s a pause, of the world and of Harry’s movements as Louis lets his breath and pulse collect. Darker, restricted, his lungs comply, shallow but almost even. 

 

More silence, and then a loss of warmth, and the sound of Harry undoing his trousers, and discarding them. Cicadas and horseflies have joined the noise and flocks buzzing through the room. 

 

Louis’ heart is pounding out a sprinted song of _too much, too much,_ but his body is still twisting, yearning for more, and through the gap and panic of blindness, he finds Harry’s hand, and pushes it down between his legs.

Harry complies, soft and slow, too slow, but any faster and Louis’ heart would give out. 

 

Harry touches him easily for a while, before inching Louis’ pants down past his thighs. The cool air makes his cock twitch, aghast and begging through the dark. 

 

Without warning, Harry slides the material all the way off, trailing down his legs with his palms. There’s a hesitation, a light kiss pressed to his ankle before fingers come, prying him apart, a starved sparkle in Harry’s eyes turning him into a mountain of flesh, something to be devoured. 

And Harry devours.

 

There’s no buildup, no teasing as Harry delves in with the pointed and surely forked dig of his tongue. Louis’ brain screeches to a standstill, unprepared for the instant flares that bolt through his body, skin blooming and trailing inflamed paths of pleasure. 

 

It’s the feeling of hot coals being pressed against and into him, licked to steam by Harry’s tongue. And wet - Louis can feel the downpour weighting down his lungs moving south, wetting between his thighs and soaking down to drip back to where his spine is arching off the mattress. 

It’s electric and the way it’s turning flips in his stomach is horrible, inescapable, beautiful. 

 

The jabs of damp heat and arousal against his rim are interrupted by Harry’s frequent whispers into his skin, questioning that he’s still fine, it’s still good, and each time Louis whimpers out a confirmation. 

 

The motion and glide of Harry’s lips are high-frequency and insistent, pushing away any hints of doubt or anxious surges that have been threatening and conquering through the night. 

 

Louis can see embers burning bullet holes through his eyelids when Harry pushes deeper, one hand snaking up to rub along the shaft of Louis’ cock, holding him in place against his stomach. 

Harry finds a rhythm, something rocking and unforgivable, and the pace holds Louis hostage, a slave to the wet heat slathered across his hole by Harry’s eagerness. 

 

Louis’ crying, been crying for a while now, and the tears have begun to seep through the silk of his blindfold, pressing the fabric in wet hollows against his face. 

Harry’s hands are just there, holding him in place, smoothing along the agitation that’s dripping from his pores.

 

It’s a new experience, having someone unseen and unknown just stroking him through it, letting him cry and feel and writhe beneath. No repeated words of comfort, no _it’s all right’_ s, not a hint of a _there, there,_ or any sort of tug for him to stop, just a dark whisper that checks to see he’s still breathing. 

 

Louis’ sure it’s hours before Harry comes up for air, the front of his pants wet with the stain of his release that Louis somehow missed, silent and unaffected as Harry’s tongue pulsed and worked its way inside. 

 

When Harry pulls back it’s with a pleased hum as he lifts himself up to cuddle into Louis’ neck. His skin feels red hot, chin wet with spit and Louis isn’t convinced he’s not about to tear at the seams and break apart as the dampness presses against his skin.

The hand pressing Louis’ cock against the plush swell of his stomach shifts too, slipping down between his thighs to rub against the dampness there, before drawing back up to wrap around him entirely.

 

When a wet and hitching cry drips past Louis’ lips, Harry nestles in further, all tongue and nipping teeth, open-mouthed against his throat, and Louis can’t stop his muscles from bunching, or tendons from screaming out against the confines of his skin. 

A wave of something warm and rushing washes over him. Louis deliriously wonders if Harry has bitten through something vital, and he’s bleeding out. 

 

It’s not until his body tenses and seizes that he realizes he’s right on the brink of coming, toes inching over the edge with unsteady footing.

With the realization comes a surge of panic, a terrified start that it’s going to be too powerful, too much, and just as soon as the thought comes it’s confirmed, and his nerves ignite.

 

His orgasm devastates his body, flash bulbs bursting and exploding, lightning strikes and beads of sweat combusting and streaking shooting stars and brilliance beneath his skin. 

 

By the time it tapers off to minor shockwaves and a thin line of come dribbling down the arch of his cock, he’s spent, body worn and torn to pieces, sagging down against Harry. 

 

His last coherent thoughts before he lets the rubble bury him are how strange it is that they’re both made up of so many bones, yet still feel so soft and tender pressed together, and how distant thoughts of Liam have felt through all of it, far away and flickering, like a lighthouse through the fog.

 

\--

 

Harry’s fingers are tracing an idle pattern over the soft rise of Louis’ stomach. He’s coming down, finally, and the scarf has since been removed from his eyes, cast off to join the clothes scattered around the bed like toy soldiers. 

There’s a part of Louis that wants to shrink away from the touch, cover himself, but he finds there’s nothing but simple affection in the runnings of Harry’s fingers, and pure adoration in his half-lidded eyes. 

It’s simple, and gentle, something Louis hasn’t known before, and he lets himself enjoy the feeling, bask in the niceness.

 

“So,” Harry’s tongue is tying loose knots around his words. “What kind of music d’you like?” 

Small talk after everything is almost enough to make Louis laugh through the exhaustion. He lets his eyelids drop closed before conjuring up an answer. 

 

“Indie, mostly. Soft rock.” Between their bodies his fingers try to trace out a beat of what he means, mimicking acoustic strumming and faint drum machines between the sheets. 

“You know? Gentle...” His voice has gone pale. “I like to be able to fall asleep to something.” 

 

“Is this gentle enough?” Harry asks, a tired whisper that Louis catches on his eyelashes. _Am I gentle enough,_ he knows Harry means, and he presses a smile against the pillow. 

“Yes,” he answers, listening to the symphony of their bodies breathing, slow and soft, synth and keyboard, and it’s simple. Sleep guides them by the hand and holds them until morning, pale blue and finally calming. 

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/neurtsy


End file.
